Dating relationships have gone through the same cycle.  Becky was my first love and when she broke up with me it was extraordinarily hard.  It felt like I would die if I didn’t have her with me.  Two months went by before my hysterical desire to see her faded, and occasionally I still think of her wistfully to this day.  Breakups after her have become easier and easier, just like the cycle of not seeing old friends as often and meeting new ones has become easier.  I understand that my first girlfriends and first friends were not necessarily better than my later friends, but that I have become a more mature and seasoned person through these experiences.

Maturity in friendships and relationships has given me a fierce independence and freedom.  I don’t need any one person and am able to make new friends and find lovers wherever I find myself.  People are vital to a happy, healthy life but no one person is irreplaceable to me now.  I love my friends, girlfriend and family and they are very important to me.  I am also happy to be a free, independent person who does not need any one person and can freely spend time with people I want to be with.  True love is not based on need, it is based on want that is freely desired.  Think of abusive relationships… why do beaten wives stay with drunk demon husbands? It certainly isn’t because they freely desire and want the treatment they get… it’s because  they are emotionally dependent and need their partner.  The most beautiful relationships are ones in which both parties are happy, strong and independent and can leave at anytime and still be happy… but they choose to stay with one another.  Those are the relationships I want in my life.

My strength came through circumstances that were forced upon me and my reaction to those times.  I wonder if it is possible for someone who is never forced to go through such circumstances to develop into a robust, free person?  I’m not sure.  I can say that many people I know who either have not been through those problems or reacted badly to them are in need-based relationships, not want-based love.  What do you think?  Do you have any need-based friendships or relationships?

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I do have a question though: As much as I like naked bicyclists, isn’t it against the law?  Do the police just not enforce nudity laws on one day of the year because their is too many people doing it?  This doesn’t make much sense to me: what if a local UFC team decided to have a “Fight Club” parade and walked down the road punching people?  Would the police not enforce assault laws either? Hmm… that may not be the best example since no one is physically injured by nudity- though viewing some of the older, plumper cyclists may cause intestinal distress lol.

Nudity is something that I’m all in favor of, but I think that the law should be changed rather than just have the police selectively enforce it.  I understand the concept of passive protest, but these naked cyclists should still be arrested and pushed through the court system.  Then if nudity is something that should be allowed, people can campaign to change the law.

Some individuals were arguing on the SeattlePI website that nude cycling was a form of “freedom” that people who want freedom from the government in other areas always seem to oppose.  I disagree with this viewpoint: I want the freedom to spend my money as I please, but these same people who want free nudity also want my money to sponsor their government handout programs.

Oregonian judges have made the best argument for public nude bicycling: they claim it is a form of “protected expression”.  Basically, that the bicyclists nudity is a political statement and thus covered under free speech.  I am a bit skeptical of this, but it certainly makes more sense than things I’ve heard.

What do you think? Is it joyful free-swinging wangs or unlawful conduct flaunting order & justice?

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Ordinary Americans are having their homes foreclosed on, losing their jobs and are facing enormous health care costs.  Only the rich few with powerful lobbyists are getting government assistance… and they sure as heck don’t need it.  These guys who made tens of millions of dollars in annual bonuses over the last decade while placing enormous risk on the banking system are getting trillions of dollars in blue-collar workers tax dollars.  The government bailouts are replenishing fat cat bankers capital so they can stay on top while the rest of us go hungry. Honest Americans in Detroit are getting shut down while city slickers in New York City laugh.

People like Dan from Bristol, Tennessee are having to take the brunt of the economic blows.  Dan used to work as a big machine repairman for an American factory until greedy executives outsourced his job to Brazil.  After he was laid off, Dan was unable to make the payments on his mortgage.  Dan’s bank foreclosed on his families home and since his mortgage was underwater Dan now owes over $45,000 in debt.  Dan is an ordinary fellow who never ran up a credit card debt, but just didn’t understand the complex adjustable-rate mortgage a sleazy lender sold him.  After Dan was foreclosed on, his wife Susan and their four children were forced to move several hundred miles away to Ohio while Dan lives in his pickup truck looking for work.  Now Dan hasn’t seen his family in close to six months and is growing increasingly desperate.

Contrast Dan with Merrill Lynch’s former CEO John Thain.  John Thain drove Merrill Lynch into the ground by not properly managing his bank’s risk and foolishly spending his investors money on redecorating his personal office for over a million dollars.  Thain even spent $1,400 on his office trash can!  That same $1,400 would have more than covered Dan’s families monthly mortgage payment, but the fat cats don’t care about the common man.  Dan lost his job helping to maintain America’s manufacturing and now he’s flat broke, but when Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain got fired, he received a $9,000,000 golden parachute.  That $9 million would go an awfully long way to help thousands of families like Dan’s get back on their feet.

Why are poor working class men like Dan losing their homes and their families while Wall Street millionaires get trillions more in tax dollars?

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Stock market changes - not so simple!

I have developed an intense loathing of reading or watching journalists cover the stock market.  Invariably, whether the stock market goes up, down or stays the same, journalists feel the need to attribute it to some obvious factor.  For instance, today the NYTimes.com (usually a good newspaper) had a front page article that said, “On Wall Street, financial markets initially seized on the fact that monthly job losses had not increased in February, and stocks rose in early trading.  But shares gave up their gains and were lower in late morning trading.”  What crap.  Basically the stock market went a little up this morning, then back down… and this retarded journalist believes he can make an absolute statement about why it happened.  Brilliant people have been trying to explain how/why the stock market moves for decades with little luck using advanced statistical techniques, complex algorithms and even witches.  What makes this bonehead think he can attribute small midday changes in market trading to a report that probably was already priced into the market?!?!

My issue is not just with this single report, but EVERY stinking time a reporter says, “The stock market was up/down today”, he immediately follows it with some random reason.  No proof, no evidence, reporters just pick one factor and attribute the changes in the stock market to it.  Ugh.

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At some points in my life it’s been almost been a game to see how much people will put up with before you push them over the edge.  Of course, others have done the same to me at times.  My stories collection includes a huge number of ridiculous things that I have done to other and others have done to me.  Many of these stories are hilarious (though dark) and some are tragic.  The hilarious stories are the ones where I give longsuffering others crap and the tragic ones are where they give it back to longsuffering me.  It’s much funnier when it’s not happening to you.

I wish I could share with you all of the stories , but it would take me far too long and probably would be inappropriate.  And it’s besides the point of this post.

For a long time, I thought it was entertaining to push people’s buttons and watch their reactions.  My friends and I would swap stories of ridiculous happenings like they were trading cards.  Many of my friends still do, but I have begun to lose interest in such things.  After you have carried something too far or had someone go too far doing something to you enough times, the humor dies and you begin to empathize with the suffering inflicted on others.  Most of what I have done is fairly mild, but there are a few things that on sober reflection I have grown to regret.  It becomes depressing.

My memory on things that people have done to me is vivid.  Thinking about some of the situations still makes me angry or humiliated.  When I compare those intense feelings of being on the receiving end to the shallow laugh of the giving end, I am very opposed to bringing that upon another.  I realized this as a very young boy, but still have occasionally brought suffering to others.  Before puberty I changed much of my humor to self-deprecating to avoid potentially hurting others.  Even in doing so, I have sometimes misjudged what would hurt someone or have been unable to contain myself if something is just too funny.  The scummy feeling I get afterwards though generally prevents such incidents.

For some reason, one area where I and many guys that I know have not been good about empathizing with others is when I’m dating.  I generally treat most people with respect and kindness, but for some reason this hasn’t extended as far into dating as it should.  Don’t get me wrong, I am far better now than I used to be, but there is still room for improvement.

Some of the people that I respect the most in my life are those who do not ever hurt others for a cheap laugh.  They treat others with the same kindness and attentiveness that they would like to receive.  Bestemor, Mark and a few others have this quality and everyone who has met them likes them greatly.  I am starting to aspire to be that good a person, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but it also will bring me the most benefit from a selfish perspective.  People who treat others extremely well are usually treated just as well back and have far better relationships than those who spinelessly seek a tacky guffaw at the expense of another human. On the other side, if someone doesn’t treat me right, it is fairly easy to point that out to them or just leave.

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As I have matured, the scale and horror of human history has finally begun to sink in.  Most of humans through history have led depressing and brutally short lives lived in pain and oppression.  Most people throughout history have lived under governments which allowed them very little freedom with leaders who were thoroughly corrupt and inbred idiots.

Even with all of my disgust with our current society and government, I am extremely grateful to not have lived anytime before now.

It’s really hard to convey the level of shock and horror I feel now when thinking about human history, but perhaps sharing a little bit of actual incidences will help you understand how bad life was and how much better off we are now.

Most everyone agrees the Nazi’s atrocities against the Jews and other minority groups were some of the worst in history, but we as victors did our fair share of horrible things too.  On February 14, 1942 Allied bombers were issued the following directive: “Attacks are to be focused on the enemy civilian population and in particular the industrial workers.”  During the following three years, Allied heavy bombers dropped over one and a half million tons of ordnance on German soil.  After the war was basically won in 1945, U.S. bombers firebombed the city of Dresden, killing somewhere between 24,000 and 40,000 civilians.  American bombers in Asia firebombed 67 cities including Tokyo, killing over half a million civilians.  Another 220,000 Japanese civilians were killed by American atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The numbers mentioned in the previous paragraph probably don’t mean much to you just reading them, but each number represents a human being.  A noncombatant civilian person.  Someone’s son or daughter, a neighborhood lifeguard, businessman, lover or friend.  It’s hard to relate to someone you have never met, but picture your mother or father being hit by one of those bombs.  Each one of those people had many other who cared for them.  Many of them died horribly from burns, shrapnel and shock.

The truly horrifying thing is that we were the nice guys.  American and British forces actually were far more humane than most armies have been through history.  Our other allies, the Russians, were so brutal and evil that at the end of the war any German who could tried to surrender to Americans so that the Russians wouldn’t get him or her.  When the Russians arrived in Berlin, many German civilians were hiding from the daily bombings by living in the subway system.  The Russian army locked the exits and flooded the subway system, killing countless people.  The women and children left unluckily left alive in Russian hands were raped, sadistically tortured and in many cases murdered.

The instances I recounted above are some of the tamer, less hands-on horrors of history and only the very tip of the iceberg from World War II.  Almost every generation of human history has been bloody, dark and evil.  Most humans have lived in poverty under repressive regimes that considered war, rape, murder and torture fun weekend activities.

Jonathan Swift made this point best in “Gulliver’s Travels”, when his main character visited the land of the talking horses and described “the great and fearless heroes and wars and kings and emperors of human history”… and the horse replied in disgust that humanity was the most filthy, miserable and evil creatures ever to live life.

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Deep, profound question #1: What hair color do they put on bald men’s licenses?

Profound question #2: Can men and women have platonic relationships?

Deep question #3: If you were offered $1,000,000 right now to have your mother die one day sooner than she otherwise would have, would you take it?  What about one year?  Using this logic can you place a monetary value on your loved ones’ life?

Profound question for thinkers #4: Doesn’t a lightning rod atop a church show a lack of faith?

Profound question #5: What is the best opening line to use on Catherine Bell?

Catherine Bell - "Marry me?"

Profoundly deep question #6: If “well-endowed” women work at Hooters, do amputees work at IHOP?

Profound question #7: Who will win the national championship football game between Florida and Oklahoma and what will the final score be?

Pro-fun question #8: If women were physically larger and stronger than men, would the relationship between genders be the same?

Profound questioning instance #9: In every sports game there is a winner and a loser, so why do only the winners credit God with determining the outcome?

Deep and profound question #10: If a doctor had a heart attack during an important surgery, would the other doctors work on him or the original patient?

Joel would greatly appreciate your contributions to answering his pround questions.  Feel free to answer as you like in the comments below.

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Gambling is banned for a reason in most states: it takes money from people who are either too stupid to realize what a waste of money gambling is or who are too desperate and sad to do something more productive.  Gambling is not an entertainment, instead it is an addiction.  People get a weird thrill when they win and feel anxious to win back money when they lose.  Just like the house always ends up winning more money than it gives out, the casino gves people more misery than joy.  Foolish elderly Washingtonians will spend their Social Security checks in the Snoqualmie Tribe’s Casino, poor blue collar workers who don’t know the math behind gambling will lose their children’s food & vacation budgets and lonely people desperate for a cheap thrill will get sucked into the addiction that is casino gambling.

Not only is casino gambling an evil industry, but it is an industry which should not exist in Washington State anyways.  Even as a person who is part Cherokee, I hold a very strong opinion on the special rights American Indians are granted in the United States: they should not have them.  Most countries that conquer a territory and settle its citizens in that territory do not allow the former inhabitants any special rights.  The Snoqualmie Tribe, the Puyallup Tribe and all of the other tribes should receive no special rights above normal United States citizens.  Giving American Indian tribes special rights (fireworks, gambling, tobacco) not only is racist and discriminatory, but it leads to the harm of the very tribes it is meant to help.

The 600 members of the Snoqualmie Tribe are scattered all over and many currently lead successful, healthy & normal lifestyles.  The federal recognition of the Snoqualmie tribe and the subsequent building of the Snoqualmie Casino has begun to change all of that.  Snoqualmie Tribe members are infighting and some of the members (Carolyn Lubenau, Sharon Frelinger) have been banished because they didn’t agree with the criminal ways that the tribe did business.  The Snoqualmie Tribe elders have accepted bribe payments from investors (Seahawks luxury suite, $10,000 to fight a personal traffic ticket, $12,000 monthly for tribal council members)and used the Snoqualmie Tribal offices for personal uses according to the Seattle Times.  Now that the Snoqualmie Tribe has built the Snoqualmie Casino, the situation will only become more corrupt.  The happy, normal 600 members of the Snoqualmie Tribe will begin to get large quantities of free cash and if they react to it in the way other American Indian tribes have their lives will become more troubled.  Studies have shown that people living on reservations have a significantly increased risk of substance abuse, suicide and many other serious problems.

The Snoqualmie Casino is an enterprise founded in greed and disregard for human life (both of Washington citizens and Snoqualmie Tribe members) that is going to be a blight upon our area.  The close proximity of the Snoqualmie Casino to Seattle and other very wealthy neighborhoods ensures that it will make a fortune, but at what cost to our society?  The Snoqualmie Casino will hurt the individuals, families and social groups of everyone involved.

What is the solution? Very simple: treat all American citizens equally. Do not give special rights and access to any class of people based on race, religion, or sex.  Doing so furthers divisions between these classes and leads to a miserable society.  Segregating American Indians on reservations and giving them special rights and money just because of their race violates every american principle of individual freedom.  The argument that “the white man took American Indian land” holds no water.  The white man also took one heck of a lot of land from Mexico, including large swaths of Texas and all of California… why don’t we declare those states “Mexican American Reservations”?  When one country conquers another, it has every right (and one might argue duty) to assimilate the people in the new territory fully into its own system of government.  Keeping seperate classes leads to racial hatred and strife.  The Snoqualmie Casino will continue to cement class differences in America and will lead to the eventual corruption and downfall of the Snoqualmie Tribe.

Anyone who believes in racial equality in America should boycott the Snoqualmie Casino.

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